Nederland 3 - History

History

Nederland 3 was established on 4 April 1988. The original plan was for the third Dutch public television channel to be a joint venture with the Flemish public broadcaster VRT (then called BRTN), which would specialize in Flemish-Dutch cultural programming. This plan failed however.

Nederland 3 became the home channel of the broadcasters VPRO, VARA, RVU, and NPS, all of which share a progressive outlook. The channel focused on news, debate, culture and innovative television. Before the evening peak the channel's programming, organized by NPO under the label Z@ppelin, was aimed at children.

In September 2006, the programming of NPO's television channels was changed slightly. Today Nederland 3 still focuses on children during the daytime. In the evening it aims to reach an open-minded audience with innovative, educational television and occasionally sport. All Dutch public broadcasting organizations have air-time on Nederland 1, 2, and 3; youth-oriented broadcaster BNN's programs, however, are currently broadcast only on Nederland 3.

On September 16, 2007 the NPO channels Nederland 1, Nederland 2 and Nederland 3 switched completely to anamorphic widescreen, before that time some of the programming was already broadcasted in widescreen.

On July 4, 2009 all three channels began simulcasting in 1080i high-definition. Before the launch of the permanent HD service, a test version of the Nederland 1 HD channel was made available from June 2, 2008 until August 24, 2008 in order to broadcast Euro 2008, the 2008 Tour de France, and the 2008 Summer Olympics in HD.